Jesse G. Vincent

Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

One man commands the most public responsibility for Packard's longtime position as one of automotive history's greatest, most respected nameplates. That is, perhaps, not surprising--many of the major players in early motoring were singular individuals. The amazing thing, however, is that the stunning cars that Packard produced during Jesse Vincent's very long tenure as the manufacturer's chief of engineering were shepherded by a man with no formal training in mechanical engineering. Vincent's formal education was largely limited to correspondence courses that arrived in the mail at his family's farm during the 1890s.
In hindsight, though, Jesse Gurney Vincent had an abundance of family lineage and good genes for what was to transpire. His maternal grandfather had been director of railroad design and engineering for the Union Army's railroad network during the Civil War, a pivotal factor in the Confederacy's inevitable defeat. The war had been over for 15 years when Vincent was born in Charleston, Arkansas. His family relocated to a farm in Pana, Illinois, where Vincent was operating his own blacksmith shop and repairing agricultural implements before he was 10 years old.
Vincent took his mail-order education and successfully applied it at companies that built business machines, an industry that functioned as a seldom-credited Ellis Island for future automotive geniuses. Vincent punched his keys at Burroughs, which moved its production to Detroit beginning in 1903. Contemporary accounts show that Vincent racked up a thick portfolio of patents for Burroughs, where he started out as a tool designer. We also know that Vincent was a very early member of the professional group that began its life as the Society of Automotive Engineers, proving his longtime interest in cars.
Then came 1910, when Howard Coffin was elevated to the vice presidency of Hudson, leaving a vacancy for chief engineer that Vincent filled nicely. Vincent stayed at Hudson for two years, and during his tenure, his brother, Charles, also joined the firm as an engineering researcher. Charles Vincent was also a player in the early industry, remaining at Hudson after Jesse left to design the Super Six. Jesse, however, moved on to Packard in 1912, shortly after his erstwhile Burroughs sideman, Alvan T. Macaulay, had also arrived at Packard as general manager under Henry B. Joy.
To correct a misconception, Jesse Vincent did not take command of Packard engineering immediately. He did begin his tenure with some successful boosts in efficiency to Packard's existing straight-six. He had also been experimenting with a new generation of Packard power when Cadillac introduced its first V-8. That new engine had to be answered. Vincent did so by convincing Joy and Macaulay to approve a 12-cylinder powerplant. It became known as the Packard Twin Six, stood as a worthy foil to Cadillac, and irreversibly established Packard as the leader among the ''Three Ps'' of American luxury manufacturers that also encompassed Peerless and Pierce-Arrow.
The Twin Six's winning rollout came over the objections of Sydney Waldron, who, as Packard's chief engineer, was Vincent's boss. Waldron had urged Joy to stick with six-cylinder power. Skunked, he left Packard in 1915 (for Cadillac, no less), handing Vincent the keys to the firm's mechanical design offices. In that capacity, Vincent achieved immortality for his role in creation of the Liberty V-12 aircraft engine during World War I.
Essentially, Vincent was commissioned as a major in the U.S. Army Signal Corps when the United States was drawn into the fighting. The federal government naturally reached out to engine designers when looking for a reliable aero engine that could be mass-produced. Vincent was assigned to the project along with Elbert J. Hall, of the Hall-Scott Motor Company in Berkeley, California. Vincent supervised the creation of an engine development site for the Army, along with another car guy who'd been drafted by the military, Howard Marmon.
The Liberty's success, and influence on all sorts of later engine designs, is a storybook tale. It also gave Vincent an undying reputation as a genius, though not without the breath of scandal. According to archival materials at the Smithsonian Institution, Vincent was accused by investigators of steering federal funds to Packard, in which he was a major stockholder, while leading the Liberty effort. Despite investigators' urgings, Vincent was never prosecuted, although he was nevertheless issued a pardon by President Woodrow Wilson and left the Army as a full colonel, with an honorable discharge from the service. Due in all likelihood to the Liberty dustup, Vincent was never awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for which he had been recommended.
The award continued to elude him all his life, even though Packard was also a vital defense contractor during the World War II years. Vincent remained as Packard's head of engineering until he retired in 1946. His imprint, therefore, is on virtually every Packard produced since World War I. He lived to witness Packard's ignominious exit, dying in 1962.

This article originally appeared in the September, 2010 issue of Hemmings Classic Car.